Hydrocarbons, such as oil and gas, are commonly obtained from subterranean formations that may be located onshore or offshore. The development of subterranean operations and the processes involved in removing hydrocarbons from a subterranean formation typically involve a number of different steps such as, for example, drilling a wellbore at a desired well site, treating the wellbore to optimize production of hydrocarbons, and performing the necessary steps to produce and process the hydrocarbons from the subterranean formation.
Modern well drilling operations require precise steering controls and operations to land boreholes in thin bed hydrocarbon reservoirs, while avoiding undesirable formation strata. Such steering operations may require that a borehole start on a generally vertical trajectory and transition to a horizontal trajectory as it nears a particular formation strata boundary, so as to land in the desired formation strata. Tools that generate electromagnetic waves can be used to investigate the surrounding formation for strata boundaries, but at long distances, due to the presence of multiple layers in typical formations and low tool sensitivity far from the borehole, the tools have limited effectiveness at identifying formation boundaries. Although resistivity sensors can be disposed in a bottom hole assembly (BHA) of the drilling string, precise placement of the wellbore into thin bed reservoirs is still generally difficult with sensors in the BHA due to depth lag. The lack of accurate deep formation measurements makes it difficult to identify the formation boundary early enough for the borehole to land effectively in the desired formation strata.